#EP2019 - Greens get top score for making finance serve society

Finance Watch, the European, not-for-profit association of civil society, dedicated to making finance work for the good of society, have studied the political manifestos of the main political groups. After releasing its citizens guide to the EU elections two weeks ago, Finance Watch has taken positive note of the race to the top between political groups and the introduction of further commitments to make finance serve society.

In the updated rating, the group Greens/EFA score best in all four in four areas of policy changes needed to make finance serve society: (1) Stabilize the financial system, (2) democratise the financial institutions as well as financial policy making, (3) re-direct capital to a sustainable economy and (4) prepare for a future financial crisis.

• Explore the online citizens’ guide How to vote for a financial system that serves society (updated webpage, also available in French, German and Italian)

• Download a detailed analysis of the commitments made by the political groups (updated pdf)

Finance Watch Secretary General Benoît Lallemand said: “We are pleased to notice that policy makers submit further commitments to show their high ambition for reforming our financial system. Our aim is to ensure all parties and political groups have the strongest possible policies to make finance serve society. We are looking forward to receive more commitments from other political parties.

“This race to the top is exactly what we need today: The ‘regulatory pendulum’ is swinging back with a vengeance since a few years now. As of today, we have to conclude that none of the structural vulnerabilities that led to the financial crisis of 2008 have been tackled in a decisive way.

“The financial sector lobby has successfully blamed post-crisis regulation, in particular higher capital requirements, for allegedly holding back bank lending and slowing down the recovery. We have witnessed how policy makers have been convinced by these misleading arguments and how new rules introduced have been already heavily watered down.

“That is why we also ask for democratizing EU policy making and for setting up rules to limit the influence of the financial lobby over our policymakers. This can be done by increasing lobby transparency and introducing stronger rules on conflicts of interest and revolving doors. We are glad to see that more than 230 candidates signed the pledge tochallenge the financial lobby, initiated by the civil-society led Change Finance-Coalition.”

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